If a full term is 37 weeks, then we have just hit the 1/3 mark of this pregnancy... kind of. That's a bit of stretch, but it sounds nice. You start counting the weeks from the beginning of a cycle, not from the date of conception, so you get to add two weeks for free. I guess that's because couples usually aren't as sure about the day of conception as they are about the first day of the cycle. In our case, we had conception pegged right down to the hour, so those extra two weeks seem like a bit of a freebie.12-2/7 weeks is only a third of the way to "full term." Apparently, most first-time pregnancies go the whole 40 weeks, so calling it a third is somewhat inappropriate. We won't be at the real one-third mark until 13 weeks and 2 days -- next Tuesday. When we get to that point, then we can feel really good about ourselves.
I was flipping ahead to find out a bit about the last few weeks of pregnancy -- mainly in an effort to find out if we could expect comparisons to pineapples or watermelons. I didn't turn up any melon references, but I did find out that you really shouldn't drink castor oil to try to encourage labour when you start to get impatient. Castor oil has proven to be quite a powerful laxative, but it's ability to encourage labour is still in question. Yikes. I hope the store will let me return all this castor oil that I bought.Did you know that castor oil has been used as "a tool of political terror"? Neither did I. What a versatile product.
3 comments:
Castor oil is quite unusual in its chemistry.90% of the fatty acids in it are ricinoleic, it is quite polar.I'm sure you know this...but did you know that castor oil was used as a disciplinary tool for children in early American times? that doesn't seem too pleasant especially as it is used as an emetic to induce vomitting.
On a happier note 1/3 sounds very exciting! Only so far times two left to go!
Brooke drank Castor Oil the night before she went into labor. It worked for her... but Aden wasn't ready so she spent 17 hours waiting! Just don't do it... it's some kind of conspiracy theory...
A ha!
I was almost 3 weeks overdue with J and in those days they did not induce much, if at all. M was supposed to be heading off to National Guard drill and I was sure I would have the baby as soon as he left. So the doctor told me I could take castor oil if I wanted to and see what happened. So I guzzled down a 2 oz bottle (no one told me to mix it with orange juice so I just took it with a large spoon!) and waited. I did not have to wait long---about 2 hours later I was in labor about 4 minutes apart and it stayed that way for almost 18 hours until J. was born. I said I would never do that again...but I did. How the memory fades after birth! The next baby, A, was also almost 3 weeks late as well and the same doctor gave me the same advice and I did the same thing. Different results--I was clean as a whistle, but no labor. She came on her own a couple of days later. For years I could hardly stand to look at cooking oil because it looked so much like castor oil. My advice: STAY AWAY FROM CASTOR OIL--it is yucky in many ways.
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